T'S  UpTo\bu! 

AivYoa  SMfag'ffp 
orfatflMDewa 

O 
O 


Ralph  Parleite 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

MR.  ¥.   JEFFERSON  DAVIS 


See!  I  help  Little  Bean  to  the  top,  and  he  rattles  right  back 
to  the  bottom.  I  increase  his  altitude  without  increasing  his  size  and 
he  reduces  to  his  lowest  terms! 


ITS  UpTo  You! 


orRatflingDown 

o 


Ralph  Parlette 


PUBLISHED  BY 

PARLETTE-PADGET  COMPANY 

122  SOUTH  MICHIGAN  AVENUE 

CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHTED,  1918 

BY 

PARLETTE-PADGET  COMPANY 
CHICAGO 


I 


"It's  Up  To  You!" 

Shake  the  Jar! 

HOLD  in  my  hand  this  glass  jar  contain- 
ing little  white  beans  and  big  black  wal- 
nuts. I  mix  them  all  up.  Then  I  shake 
the  jar.  They  un-mix.  The  walnuts  go  to  the 
top  and  the  little  beans  go  to  the  bottom. 

This  is  no  trick;  I'll  roll  up  my  sleeves  if 
you  wish.  Mix  them  up  again.  Now  shake. 
Again  the  big  ones  go  up  and  the  little  ones 
go  down. 

That  always  happens.  You  have  seen  it 
happening  all  your  life,  all  around  you,  in  a 
thousand  different  ways.  But  have  you 
seen  it? 

Have  you  ever  noticed  how  many  times  we 
have  to  see  a  thing  before  we  see  it? 

Won't  you  try  that?  Get  a  jar,  a  box  or  a 
bucket  and  put  into  it  pebbles,  marbles,  blocks 
or  any  different-sized  things  of  about  the 
same  specific  gravity.  Throw  them  in  any 
way,  and  then  shake.  Note  how  more  per- 
fectly than  human  hands  can  sort  them,  they 
will  sort  themselves  just  by  the  shaking. 
Each  object  finds  its  place  according  to  its 
size.  The  littlest  ones  get  on  the  bottom,  the 

5 


next  larger  a  little  higher,  the  next  larger  a 
little  higher,  and  the  largest  will  shake  to  the 
top. 

When  they  shake  into  their  place  they  stay 
there.  Go  on  shaking,  but  they  won't  change 
—the  biggest  will  stay  on  the  top  and  the 
littlest  on  the  bottom. 


"Help  Me  Up!" 

Suppose  these  objects  in  the  jar  could  talk. 
Do  you 'see  that  littlest  bean  in  the  bottom? 
I  think  if  he  could  talk,  he  would  say,  "Help, 
Help !  Help  me  up.  Here  I  am  in  the  bottom 
and  so  unfortunate  and  low  down.  I  never 
had  no  chance  like  them  big  ones  up  at  the 
top.  Help  me  up ! " 

I  say,  "Yes,  Little  Bean,  I'll  help  you. 
Cheer  up  and  hold  tight,  for  I  am  going  to 
boost  you."  And  you  see  I  get  him  clear  to 
the  top.  There,  you  see  him  up  on  the  top. 
From  bottom  to  top  in  four  easy  lessons  by 
mail ! 

But  the  can  shakes.  Back  to  the  bottom 
shakes  Little  Bean,  right  where  he  was  be- 
fore I  boosted  him.  I  hear  him  say,  "King's 
ex!  I  slipped.  You  try  that  over  again,  put 
me  back  to  the  top  and  I'll  stick  there." 

"All  right,  Little  Bean,  I'll  put  you  back 
to  the  top.  I'll  write  you  some  more  testi- 
monials." So  I  put  him  back  on  top.  But  he 
cannot  stay  on  top.  Notice,  I  shake  the  jar 

6 


and  lie  shakes  right  down  to  the  bottom.  I 
can  put  him.  up  a  thousand  times,  and  he  will 
shake  right  back  to  the  bottom.  Why? 

You  know  why.  I  increase  his  altitude 
without  increasing  his  dimensions,  and  he  re- 
duces to  his  lowest  terms! 


"Put  Him  Down!" 

Then  I  hear  Little  Bean  say,  "Well,  if  I 
can't  stay  up,  you  make  them  big  ones  come 
down.  Them  Big  Nuts  haven't  any  business 
up  there  higher  than  I  am.  It  isn  't  fair.  Put 
them  down!  Put  us  all  down  on  a  level  and 
give  us  all  the  same  chance. ' ' 

So  I  say,  "  You  Big  Nuts,  do  you  hear  what 
Little  Bean  says?  You  have  no  business  up 
there  higher  than  he  is.  Go  down  to  the  bot- 
tom where  he  is."  And  I  put  all  the  big 
ones  right  down  on  the  bottom. 

But  as  I  shake  the  jar,  the  Big  Nuts  all 
shake  right  back  to  the  top.  I  can  put  them 
down  a  thousand  times  and  they  will  shake 
right  back  to  the  top.  Their  size  takes  them 
up  just  as  Little  Bean's  size  takes  him  down. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  change  their  place 
in  the  jar.  Putting  them  up  or  putting  them 
down  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Change  their 
size.  If  Big  Nut  gets  smaller  he  will  shake 
down;  if  Little  Bean  gets  larger  he  will  not 
have  to  say,  "Help  me  up!"  He  will 
shake  up. 


Change  their  size  and  the  shaking  does  the 

rest ! 

*     *     * 

The  Shaking  Jar  of  Life 

This  little  jar  is  a  picture  of  what  is  going 
on  everywhere  in  this  world  all  the  time. 

The  world  is  just  a  big  jar  of  life.  All  the 
people  are  in  the  jar  getting  jarred  around 
all  the  time.  All  kinds  of  people  are  in  the 
jar  of  life — big  people,  little  people,  smart 
people,  dull  people,  philosophers,  fools  — 
honest,  dishonest,  capable,  incapable,  indus- 
trious, lazy,  enthusiastic,  discouraged,  jaded, 
cynical,  selfish,  unselfish  and  a  thousand  other 
kinds. 

The  jar  of  life  goes  on  shaking  all  the  time. 
It  never  stops  shaking.  Every  community  is 
shaking.  Every  office,  shop,  store,  school, 
church,  household — every  place  where  we  live 
or  work,  is  shaking. 

The  same  law  that  shakes  Little  Bean  down 
and  Big  Nut  up  in  this  jar  is  acting  conscious- 
ly or  unconsciously  upon  every  one  of  us  in 
the  jar  of  life.  It  is  sending  little  people  down 
and  big  people  up.  It  is  pushing  everyone  of 
us  to  the  place  our  size  and  shape  determine. 

The  glory  of  our  life  is  we  are  not  helpless 
like  the  objects  in  this  jar.  They  cannot 
change  their  size,  but  we  can  change  our  size. 

As  we  change  our  size,  we  automatically 
change  our  place.  No  matter  what  place  we 
have  shaken  into,  if  we  get  smaller,  we'll 


rattle  down  to  a  smaller  place.  If  we  get  big- 
ger, we'll  shake  up  to  a  bigger  place. 

When  I  say  "big"  and  "little",  I  do  not 
mean  children,  I  mean  people  who  grow  and 
people  who  shrink. 

I  hear  a  good  deal  about  "destiny".  Some 
people  seem  to  think  that  destiny  is  like  a 
railroad  train,  and  if  we  do  not  get  down  to 
the  depot  in  time,  our  train  of  destiny  will 
run  off  and  leave  us,  and  we  will  have  no 
destiny! 

No !  Here  is  destiny — this  jar.  If  we  are 
small,  we  will  have  a  small  destiny.  If  we 
are  great  we  will  have  a  great  destiny.  We 
cannot  dodge  our  destiny.  And  it  is  in  our 
own  hands! 


"Good  Luck"  and  "Bad  Luck" 

This  little  jar  tells  me  so  much  about  luck. 
You  have  noted  that  lucky  people  shake  up 
and  unlucky  people  shake  down.  That  is, 
the  lucky  people  become  great  and  the  un- 
lucky people  shrivel  and  rattle. 

Notice  as  I  put  all  the  Little  Beans  up  and 
all  the  Big  Nuts  down.  I  bump  this  jar  just 
once.  That  one  bump  did  two  things;  it 
bumped  all  the  Little  Beans  down  and  all  the 
Big  Nuts  up. 

That  same  bump  was  both  good  luck  and 
bad  luck.  It  was  good  luck  to  the  big  ones 
and  pushed  them  up.  It  was  bad  luck  to  the 

9 


little  ones  and  pushed  them  down.  The  same 
bump ! 

Ah!  Don't  you  see,  Little  Bean,  luck  does 
not  depend  upon  the  bump,  but  upon  the  size 
of  the  bump-ee? 

Don't  you  see  that  if  you  will  grow  bigger, 
your  luck  will  change  1  The  same  bumps  that 
push  you  down  will  push  you  up ! 

GROW  BIGGER! 


We  Cannot  Change  the  Laws 

Everybody  wants  to  go  up.  But  everybody 
is  not  willing  to  pay  the  price  by  first  grow- 
ing bigger  so  that  he  can  shake  higher.  So 
many  want  to  be  boosted  up.  And  if  they 
get  boosted  higher  than  their  size  would  take 
them  anyhow,  they  rattle  back !  Nobody  can 
fool  the  jar  of  life. 

We  must  work  with  the  laws  of  the  jar  of 
life.  We  cannot  change  the  laws  by  any  laws 
we  write  upon  human  statute  books,  any 
more  than  Xerxes  could  command  the  stormy 
sea  by  throwing  fetters  into  it. 

Everybody  is  doing  one  of  three  things: 
Holding  his  place,  rattling  down,  or  shak- 
ing up. 

*     *     * 

How  to  Hold  Our  Place 

Whatever  place  we  shake  into,  if  we  want 
to  hold  our  place,  we  must  hold  our  size.     We 
10 


must  fill  the  place,  for  if  we  shrink  up  smaller 
than  the  place,  we  rattle.  Nobody  can  stay 
long  where  he  rattles.  Nature  abhors  a 
rattler.  He  shakes  down  to  a  place  where  he 
does  not  rattle. 

And  you  observe  that  in  order  to  hold  our 
size,  we  must  keep  on  growing  enough  to  sup- 
ply the  loss  by  evaporation.  Evaporation  is 
going  on  all  the  time,  in  lives  as  well  as  in 
liquids.  A  plum  becomes  a  prune  by  evapora- 
tion. I  wish  human  plums  became  as  valu- 
able when  they  become  prunes. 

Now  life  is  mainly  routine.  You  and  I  and 
everybody  must  go  on  doing  about  the  same 
things  day  after  day.  But  if  we  let  it  become 
just  routine  we  are  going  to  rattle.  If  we  go 
round  and  round,  thinking  the  same  thoughts, 
doing  just  the  same  things  the  same  way,  just 
turning  round  and  round  in  our  places,  we 
are  going  to  wear  smaller,  evaporate,  rattle. 
The  joy  and  juice  will  go  out  of  our  lives.  We 
will  shrivel  and  rattle.  The  very  routine  of 
r  life  must  flash  a  new  attractiveness  each  day. 

The  farmer  must  be  learning  new  things 
about  farming  each  day  to  hold  his  place  as  a 
farmer.  The  merchant  must  be  growing  into 
a  greater,  better-informed  merchant  to  hold 
his  place  among  his  competitors.  The  mini- 
ster must  be  getting  larger  visions  of  the 
ministry  as  he  goes  back  week  after  week 
into  the  same  pulpit,  to  keep  on  filling  it.  The 
teacher  must  be  seeing  new  possibilities  in 
the  same  old  schoolroom  or  the  school  will 
11 


fossilize.  The  man  in  the  shop  must  be  grow- 
ing or  he  will  rattle. 

You  notice  anybody  who  stays  in  the  same 
place  year  after  year  is  filling  it.  He  does  not 
rattle. 

Unless  the  place  is  a  museum  or  a  grave ! 


The  "Unlucky"  Ones 

My  heart  aches  for  the  rattlers,  the  loafers, 
the  drifters,  the  butterflies  of  the  bright 
lights,  the  people  who  merely  have  a  "job" 
and  go  round  day  by  day  following  their  noses 
without  trying  to  grow  and  develop  them- 
selves and  their  capabilities. 

As  the  train  of  progress  speeds  on  and  they 
find  themselves  falling  farther  and  farther 
back  toward  the  caboose,  they  wail,  "I  never 
had  any  chance  like  other  people.  The  world 
is  against  me." 

The  other  day  in  a  paper-mill  I  was  stand- 
ing beside  a  long  machine  making  shiny 
supercalendered  paper.  A  man  came  along 
with  an  oil-can,  squirting  oil  into  the  squirt- 
places  along  the  side  of  the  machine.  I  asked 
him  some  questions  about  the  machine  and  he 
answered  them  fairly  well. 

I  am  a  newspaperman,  a  walking  interro- 
gation-point, and  I  began  to  see  the  possibili- 
ties of  a  "story"  here.  So  I  asked  him  some 
more  questions  about  a  process  over  in  the 
next  room.  He  replied,  "I  don't  know  noth- 
12 


ing  about  it,  boss,  I  don't  work  there."  I 
asked  hinl  about  another  process.  "I  don't 
know  nothing  about  it,  I  never  worked  there. ' ' 
I  asked  him  about  the  pulp-mill.  "I  don't 
know  nothing  about  it,  I  never  worked  in 
there."  I  asked  him  about  the  office,  how 
many  people  work  in  the  plant.  "I  don't 
know  nothing  about  it,  boss,  I  never  worked 
in  there." 

"Nobody  home!"  I  asked  him,  "How  long 
have  you  worked  at  this  machine1?"  I  hope  I 
misunderstood  him,  but  I  think  he  said, 
"Twelve  years." 

Twelve  years  and  "don't  know  nothing 
about ' '  any  more  of  the  plant !  I  took  off  my 
hat  in  the  presence  of  the  dead!  As  I  went 
out  of  the  room  I  asked  the  foreman,  "Do  you 
see  that  man  over  there  with  the  oil-can!  Is 
he  a  human  being  or  do  you  wind  him  up?" 

The  foreman's  face  clouded.  "I  hate  to 
talk  to  you  about  that  man.  He  is  one  of  the 
kindest-hearted  men  in  the  plant,  but  we  have 
got  to  'can'  him.  He  doesn't  learn.  He 
doesn  't  know  as  much  today  as  he  did  yester- 
day. He  didn't  know  as  much  yesterday  as 
he  'did  the  day  before.  We're  afraid  he'll 
dry  up,  fall  in  the  machine  and  break  it ! " 

The  foreman  was  worried  about  the 
machine ! 

And  that  man  went  out  of  that  plant  say- 
ing, ' '  The  world  doesn 't  use  me  right.  Here 
I've  given  the  best  years  of  my  life  to  that 


13 


company  and  now  they  heartlessly  throw  me 
out." 

Nobody  can  stay  where  he  rattles.  It's 
grow  or  go ! 

Jar  the  jar  and  see. 


The  "Lucky"  Ones 

So  everywhere  you  look  you  see  the  jar  of 
life  sorting  people  according  to  size.  Every 
big  business  concern  can  tell  you  stories  like 
that  of  the  Chicago  house  where  a  number  of 
young  ladies  worked  in  the  office.  There 
came  a  raw,  green  girl  from  the  country.  It 
was  her  first  office  experience,  and  she  got 
the  bottom  place. 

She  was  so  green  and  raw.  She  was  the 
office  joke.  She  believed  everything  they  told 
her — and  they  told  her  a  plenty!  She  made 
many  blunders,  but  she  did  not  make  the  same 
blunder  twice.  She  learned  the  lesson  from 
each  bump. 

And  she  never  ''got  done."  When  she  had 
finished  her  work,  she  could  always  see  some- 
thing else  that  ought  to  be  done,  and  'she 
would  go  on  doing  it.  Go  on  doing  it  without 
being  told!  She  had  developed  that  rare 
faculty  the  world  is  bidding  for — initiative. 

The  other  girls  "got  done."     They  had 

made  a  reputation  in  that  office  for  "getting 

done. ' '   When  they  had  finished  the  work  they 

had  been  put  at,  they  would  wait — 0,  so  pa- 

14 


tiently  they  would  wait — to  be  told  what  to 
do  next. 

Within  three  months  every  other  girl  in 
the  office  was  asking  questions  of  the  "  office 
joke."  She  had  learned  more  about  the  busi- 
ness in  three  months  than  the  others  had 
learned  in  their  longer  service  there.  Noth- 
ing got  by  her.  She  had  grown  to  be  the 
best  posted,  most  capable  worker  there. 

It  is  now  time  to  shake  this  little  jar! 

It  was  not  very  long  until  she  was  made 
superintendent.  She  shook  to  the  top.  The 
other  girls  felt  hurt  about  it.  They  had 
never  seen  this  little  glass  jar.  They  said, 
' '  There  was  nothing  fair  about  it  at  all.  Jen- 
nie ought  to  have  been  made  superintendent. 
Jennie  had  been  here  for  four  years." 

But  it  wasn't  an  endurance  contest  at  all! 
It  was  a  matter  of  growing. 


Give  Everybody  a  Jar! 

O,  little  jar,  how  you  teach  us  the  truths 
of  life ! 

I  am  in  favor  of  110,000,000  of  these  jars 
distributed  as  Christmas  presents  over  the 
United  States. 

I  want  one  on  the  mantel,  right  where  I  can 
shake  it  every  day  and  ask,  "Ralph  Parlette, 
are  you  growing  some  today,  or  are  you  rat- 
tling!" 

I  want  one  in  every  schoolroom  so  that  the 
15 


But  see  again!  I  put  Big  Nut  down  in  the  bottom,  and  he  shakes 
right  back  to  the  top.  Big  Nut  shakes  up  because  he  is  big  just  as 
Little  Bean  shakes  down  because  he  is  little. 


pupils  can  learn  the  laws  of  human  specific 
gravity. 

I  want  one  in  every  business  office  so  that 
any  worker  who  says,  "Why  don't  I  get  pro- 
moted?" may  shake  the  jar  and  learn  how  we 
compel  promotion.  We  grow  bigger.  We  de- 
velop larger  capabilities.  We  enlarge  our  use- 
fulness. We  increase  our  efficiency.  We  do 
more  than  we  are  paid  to  do.  We  overfill  our 
place.  And  as  we  grow  bigger,  we  shake  up 
to  bigger  place ! 

*     *     * 

We  promote  ourselves ! 
It's  up  to  you  and  me ! 
Are  we  rising  or  rattling! 


Don't  Get  "Finished!" 

I  am  sorry  when  I  hear  somebody  say, 
"Now  don't  try  to  tell  me  anything  about 
that.  I've  been  at  this  all  my  life,  and  what 
I  don't  know  about  it  isn't  worth  knowing." 
That  man  has  quit  growing  and  is  generally 
rattling.  The  greater  and  wiser  the  man,  the 
more  anxious  he  is  to  be  told  and  to  learn. 

I  am  sorry  for  the  one  who  struts  around 
saying,  "I  own  the  job.  They  can't  get  along 
without  me!"  I  feel  that  they  are  already 
getting  ready  to  get  along  without  him.  That 
kind  of  talk  is  rattle. 

The  good  boss  is  always  keeping  his  ears 
open  for  rattles  in  the  machinery. 
17 


I  am  sorry  for  the  youngster  who  goes  to 
some  place  to  " finish  his  education,"  for  he 
is  likely  to  come  back  finished  with  "outside 
finish."  I  remember  in  my  old  reader  in 
school  about  the  young  lady  who  went  away 
to  a  "finishing  school,"  and  she  came  back 
1 1  finished. ' '  She  admitted  that  she  had  been 
'  *  finished. ' '  She  said,  '  *  Isn  't  it  wonderful  to 
be  'finished!'  And  isn't  it  wonderful  that 
one  small  head  can  contain  it  all ! " 

But  over  on  the  next  page  of  my  reader 
was  the  soliloquy  of  the  philosopher  who  saw 
the  truth  and  said  what  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
said  after  giving  the  world  a  new  science,  ' '  I 
seem  to  have  been  only  the  child  playing  on 
the  seashore,"  playing  with  a  few  pebbles, 
"while  the  great  ocean  of  truth  lay  all  unex- 
plored before  me." 

I  am  sorry  for  the  man,  community  or  in- 
stitution that  spends  much  time  pointing 
backward  with  pride,  recounting  how  many 
years  "established,"  or  talking  about  "in  my 
clay. ' '  For  it  is  so  often  a  symptom  of  rattle. 
The  live  one's  "my  day"  is  today  and  to- 
morrow. The  dead  one's  is  yesterday. 

Our  funeral  is  held  right  after  we  "finish." 

Go  on  growing  up !    And  stay  alive ! 


Life's  Jar  the  Leveler 

We  could  fill  books  with  just  such  stories 
of  how  people  have  gone  up  and  down.    Did 

18 


you  ever  notice  two  brothers  start  with  the 
same  chance  and  presently  you  noted  one  was 
going  up  and  the  other  was  going  down?  One 
grew  and  the  other  rattled. 

Some  of  us  begin  life  on  the  top  of  the  jar, 
right  in  the  sunshine  of  popular  favor,  in  a 
big  house  and  father's  name  in  the  "blue 
book."  We  belong  to  the  exclusive  set. 
Others  of  us  begin  down  in  the  bottom,  out 
of  sight,  and  we  do  not  even  get  invited.  We 
often  become  discouraged  as  we  look  at  the 
top  layers,  and  we  say,  "  0,  if  I  only  had  his 
chance!  If  I  were  only  up  there  I  might 
amount  to  something.  But  I  have  no  chance, 
I  am  too  low  down. ' ' 

We  have  exactly  the  same  chance,  top  or 
bottom — the  same  chance  to  grow  or  rattle! 

And  as  the  jar  of  Hfe  goes  shaking  us  year 
after  year,  the  world  does  not  ask  us,  "Were 
you  born  on  the  bottom  or  the  top?"  but 
"Are  you  big  enough  to  fill  this  place  without 
rattling?" 


We  Must  Get  Ready  to  Get 

0,  I  wish  they  had  shown  me  this  little  jar 
earlier  in  my  life!  I  wasted  so  many  years 
sympathizing  with  myself  but  not  trying  to 
grow. 

I  used  to  think  the  way  to  get  up  into  a 
great  place  was  just  to  get  into  it.  Just 
get  enough  boosters,  get  enough  testimonials 
19 


and  "pull"  and  friends  in  the  firm  to  get 
pulled  up  into  it. 

I  thought  if  I  could  once  get  into  a  great 
place  I  would  be  great.  I  would  have  been  a 
great  joke !  I  would  have  rattled.  We  do  not 
become  great  by  getting  into  a  great  place 
any  more  than  a  boy  becomes  a  man  by  get- 
ting into  his  father's  boots.  He  is  in  great 
boots,  but  he  rattles.  He  must  get  greater 
feet  before  he  gets  greater  boots.  But  he 
must  get  the  feet  before  he  gets  the  boots ! 

We  first  grow  greater  and  the  jar  shakes 
us  higher. 

y  I  am  getting  " leery"  of  the  man  with  testi- 
monials. I  discover  the  man  with  the  most 
testimonials  generally  needs  them  most,  like 
excelsior,  to  deaden  his  rattle. 

I  am  learning  that  the  man  who  thinks 
permanent  promotion  comes  from  "pull" 
rather  than  from  self-development,  sooner  or 
later  rattles. 

/  All  life  is  preparation  for  a  greater  to- 
[  morrow.  All  education  is  a  series  of  coin- 
Vmencements — not  end-ments. 

Moses  was  eighty  years  getting  ready  to 

^    do  forty  years'  work.    The  work  was  ready 

all  this  time,  but  Moses  wasn't  ready  for  it. 

It  took  Moses  eighty  years  to  get  up  steam, 

to  get  great  enough  to  handle  the  work. 

Jesus  was  thirty  years  getting  ready  to  do 
three  years'  work. 

So  many  of  us  expect  to  get  ready  in  "four 
easy  lessons  by  mail." 
20 


We  can  be  a  pumpkin  in  one  summer.  With 
the  accent  on  the  "punk." 

We  can  be  a  mushroom  in  a  day.  With  the 
accent  on  the  "mush." 

But  it  takes  years  to  become  an  oak. ._  Keep 
on  growing! 


Fix  the  People,  Not  the  Jar 

I  used  to  say,  "Nobody  uses  me  right.  No- 
body gives  me  a  chance."  But  if  chances 
had  been  snakes,  I  would  have  been  bitten 
a  hundred  times  a  day.  We  need  oculists, 
not  opportunities. 

I  used  to  work  on  the  "section"  and  get  a 
dollar  fifteen  a  day.  I  rattled  there.  I  did 
not  earn  my  dollar  fifteen.  I  tried  to  see  how 
little  I  could  do  and  look  like  I  was  doing. 
I  was  doing — "doing"  the  railroad  company 
out  of  a  dollar  fifteen  a  day.  There  was  only 
one  joyful  moment  in  my  work  each  day— 
when  the  whistle  blew  to  quit.  O,  joyful 
sound!  I  would  come  out  of  my  trance.  I 
would  leave  my  pick  hang  right  up  in  the  air. 
I  wouldn't  bring  it  down  again  for  a  "soul- 
less corporation." 

I  used  to  pass  a  bank  on  the  way  to  the 
section-house.  "Why  don't  they  make  me 
president  of  a  bank,  naturally  bright  as  I 
am?  I  ought  to  be  president  of  a  bank  in- 
stead of  wearing  my  life  away  on  section  six- 
teen. ' ' 

21 


I  am  so  glad  now  they  didn't  make  me 
president  of  a  bank.  They  are  glad,  too  1  If 
they  had  put  me  up  into  such  a  great  place, 
I  would  have  lasted  about  fifteen  minutes  be- 
fore I  rattled  out.  I  wasn't  president  of  a 
dollar  fifteen  a  day.  I  wasn't  faithful  over 
a  few  things,  I  would  have  rattled  over  many. 
Revised  Version ! 

Remember  the  handcar  job  is  just  as  hon- 
orable as  the  bank  presidency.  But  I  wasn  't 
filling  my  handcar  place,  how  could  I  fill  a 
larger  place! 

I  used  to  say,  "Just  wait  till  I  get  to  Con- 
gress and  I'll  pass  laws  requiring  the  jar 
to.  turn  upside-  down,  so  all  us  Little  Beans 
will  be  on  top  and  all  the  Big  Nuts  in  the 
bottom. ' '  But  I  had  not  seen  that  it  wouldn  't 
matter  which  end  was  the  top  or  bottom,  the 
Big  Nuts  would  shake  up,  and  the  Little 
Beans  would  shake  down. 

For  the  jar  will  go  right  on  shaking.  We 
cannot  fix  the  jar,  we  can  only  fix  the  people 
in  the  jar. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  that  the  man  who 
is  not  willing  to  fix  himself  is  the  one  who 
wants  the  most  laws  passed  to  fix  the  jar? 

He  wants  something  for  nothing!  He  can 
never  get  it. 

But  this  blessed  old  jar  of  life  is  just  wait- 
ing and  anxious  to  shake  everybody  up  to 
what  everybody  wants,  just  as  fast  as  every- 
body grows  great  enough. 


22 


BUT  remember  that  going  up  in  life 
means  so  much  more  than  merely 
going  up  in  salary.  Or  getting  more 
acres,  autos,  pigs  or  pennies. 

Going  up  in  life  means  growing  greater 
in  our  life,  and  then  the  jar  shakes  us  up 
higher.  We  may  grow  very  great  and  go 
very  high,  and  yet  never  get  out  of  our  kitchen 
or  out  of  our  shop.  But  we  will  take  the 
kitchen  or  shop  right  up  with  us.  We  will 
make  it  a  great  kitchen  or  a  great  shop.  Make 
it  our  throne-room. 

We  get  great  on  the  inside,  not  on  the  out- 
side. Greatness  is  not  measured  in  inches, 
dollars,  acres,  votes,  hurrahs,  or  by  any  other 
()f  the  world's  yardsticks  or  barometers. 

We  go  up  from  idleness  to  industry. 

We  go  up  from  inefficiency  to  efficiency. 

'We  go  up  from  impurity  to  purity. 

We  go  up  from  unhappiness  to  happiness. 

We  go  up  from  weakness  to  strength. 

We  go  up  from  low  ideals  to  high  ideals. 

We  go  up  from  selfishness  to  unselfishness. 

We  go  up  from  foolishness  to  wisdpjn. 

We  go  up  from  fear  to  faith. 

We  go  up  from  ignorance  to  understanding. 
23 


Notice  I  bumped  the  jar  just  once.  That  bump  does  two  things:  It 
bumps  every  Little  Bean  down  and  every  Big  Nut  up.  Little  Bean  has 
the  bad  luck  and  shakes  down,  while  Big  Nut  has  the  good  luck  and 
shakes  up  with  THE  SAME  BUMP!  The  same  bump  is  both  Good  Luck 
and  Bad  Luck.  Luck  does  not  depend  upon  the  bump  but  upon  the 
size  of  the  BUMP-EE!  If  Little  Bean  will  only  grow  bigger,  his  luck 
will  change.  The  same  bumps  that  are  Bad  Luck  will  change  to  Good 
Luck.  If  Big  Nut  gets  smaller,  he  will  rattle  down. 


We  go  up  by  our  own  growing.  Nobody 
can  do  it  for  us.  Getting  things  is  mere- 
ly an  indication  of  our  development  as 
we  get  them  for  greater  service,  like  a  car- 
penter gets  tools  that  he  can  become  a  greater 
carpenter.  If  we  want  to  become  a  greater 
financier,  perhaps  we  may  have  to  get  more 
dollars.  If  we  want  to  become  a  greater 
farmer,  perhaps  we  may  have  to  get  more 
acres.  But  we  who  do  not  need  great  outfits 
of  things  to  render  great  service,  do  not  need 
a  great  lot  of  tilings  to  become  great. 

1 1 G  etting  to  the  top ' '  is  the  world 's  pet  de- 
lusion.  There  is  no  top.  Every  top  we  reach 
is  the  bottom  of  the  next  ascension.  Go  on 
growing!  "The  sky  is  the  limit!" 

The  Master  said  to  the  two  disciples  who 
wanted  to  be  greatest,  Let  him  become  the 
greatest  servant. 

I  do  not  know  who  fitted  the  boards  into 
the  floor  I  stand  upon.  I  do  riot  know  all 
the  great  people  who  may  come  and  stand 
upon  this  floor.  But  I  do  know  that  the  one 
who  made  the  floor — and  the  one  who  sweeps 
it — is  just  as  great  as  anybody  in  the  world 
who  may  come  and  stand  upon  it,  if  each  be 
doing  his  work  with  the  same  great  love, 
faithfulness  and  capability. 

The  test  of  our  greatness  is  not  what  we 
are  doing,  but  how  we  are  doing  it.  Not  what 
we  are  doing,  but  that  it  is  the  work  we  are 
best  fitted  to  do.  "Blessed  is  the  man  who 
hath  found  his  work!" 
25 


The  great  people  in  every  community  are 
so  busy  serving  that  they  have  little  time  to 
strut  and  pose  and  get  half  toned  for  the  Sun- 
day papers.  Few  of  them  are  "prominent 
clubmen."  You  rarely  find  their  names  on 
the  society  pages.  They  rarely  give  "bril- 
liant social  functions."  Their  idle  families 
attend  to  these  things,  while  they  have  more 
joy  in  real  service. 


Help  Him  to  Help  Himself 

Everybody  wants  to  go  up,  But  so  few 
understand  they  must  first  grow  greater  and 
then  they  shake  up. 

The  multitude  wants  to  be  lifted,  uplifted, 
boosted,  helped,  and  there  is  only  one  way  to 
help  anybody  up  without  helping  him  to  rattle, 
as  you  see  by  shaking  the  jar — help  him  to 
help  himself. 

That  is  why  you  cannot  help  many  people. 
They  will  not  cooperate  by  growing. 

The  old  tramp  out  on  the  street  says,  "Help 
me !  Help !  Help  me  up ! "  He  does  not  want 
to  be  helped;  he  wants  to  be  propped.  He 
wants  me  to  put  money  in  his  hand  or  his  hat. 
That  is  not  helping  him  up,  but  helping  him 
to  rattle.  That  is  professionalizing  his  help- 
lessness. 

Here  is  the  failure  of  most  of  our  "char- 
ity," most  of  our  uplift  campaigns  and  in- 


26 


stitutions.  They  help  people  to  rattle.  They 
uplift  with  a  derrick.  They  boost  somebody 
up  faster  than  he  can  grow,  then  run  with  the 
derrick  to  uplift  somebody  else,  and  the  first 
victim  rattles  back. 

I  confess  to  you  that  one  of  the  hardest 
things  for  me  to  do  in  a  city  is  to  walk  along 
the  street  past  beggars,  panhandlers  and  sym- 
pathy stunters,  and  be  kind  enough  to  them 
not  to  give  them  anything ! 

We  must  feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the 
naked,  but  save  in  emergencies,  if  we  go  no 
farther  than  that  we  have  not  helped  them, 
we  have  pauperized  them.  I  could  write  a 
book  of  confessions  of  how  I  have  tried  to 
uplift  my  fellow  man  with  a  derrick.  I  have 
taken  scores  of  derelicts,  have  given  them 
baths  and  new  clothes,  have  filled  their 
stomachs  and  cried  on  their  necks.  I  have 
put  money  in  their  hands  and  bade  them  turn 
over  a  new  leaf  and  set  out  to  live  a  new  life. 
And  with  tears  in  their  eyes  I  have  cruelly 
sent  these  rattlers  out  to  rattle  back,  leaning 
upon  the  broken  staff  of  their  own  weak  will 
power. 

O,  it  is  a  big  job  being  patient  enough  to 
uplift — to  stand  by  and  encourage  at  each 
step,  line  upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept, 
forgiving  ' '  seventy  times  seventy. ' ' 

This  is  all  there  is  to  civilization,  to  educa- 
tion, to  applied  Christianity — helping  some- 
body to  grow  bigger,  that  he  may  go  higher. 


27 


The  Tragedy  of  the  Big  House 

The  teachers  in  school  will  not  do  the  work 
of  the  pupils,  for  they  know  they  would  be 
robbing  their  pupils.  Their  pupils  must  do 
their  own  work  to  get  the  development  of 
greatness  from  the  struggle. 

I  used  to  wonder  why  my  teacher  wouldn't 
solve  my  problems  for  me.  He  would  over- 
load me  with  work,  and  crush  my  young  life 
out.  "Why  doesn't  he  solve  these  problems 
himself?  He  could  do  them  in  a  minute,  tlio 
old  brute!"  But  I  know  now  my  teacher 
loved  me  too  much  to  rob  me  that  way. 

I  wish  all  parents  were  as  wise  as  the 
teachers.  In  every  community  there  are 
parents  who  have  struggled  and  have  become 
strong.  But  somehow  they  think  their  chil- 
dren can  get  it  some  other  way.  They  think 
they  can  give  it  to  their  children ! 

I  am  very  often  the  guest  in  a  big  mansion. 
They  put  me  in  the  parlor,  in  the  big,  fat, 
Christmas  gift  chair.  They  show  me  the 
album  and  play  "Lucia  Sextet"  on  the  phono- 
graph. In  olden  time  they  used  to  unqan 
fruit,  but  now  they  uncan  music.  Then  they 
bring  in  the  offspring. 

They  say,  "Here  is  our  little  Elizabeth 
and  here  is  our  little  James.  We  have  never 
had  any  opportunity  in  our  lives.  All  ouir 
lives  we  have  only  known  toil  and  sacrifice, 
but  our  children — ah,  we  are  living  for  OUT 
precious  children.  We  shall  give  them  every- 

28 


tiling  our  money  can  buy.    We  shall  secure 
them  every  advantage." 

Buy  it !  Going  to  buy  wisdom,  understand- 
ing, greatness.  Going  to  make  a  great  place 
in  the  jar  of  life  and  put  their  little  children 
in  it.  After  I  hear  about  five  minutes  of  that, 
I  feel  like  saying,  "Toll  the  bell  for  little 
Lizzie  and  little  Jirn!  They  are  going  to 
rattle.  Father  thinks  he  can  go  to  New  York 
or  to  Chicago  or  to  '  Sears  Roebuck, '  and  get 
a  bucketful  or  barrelful  or  perhaps  lay  a 
private  pipe-line  right  up  to  the  house  and 
squirt  it  into  them  regularly  until  he  gets 
them  inflated." 

"Inflated"  is  right.    There  is  going  to  be 
-  a  "blowout"  afterwhile.     Little  Lizzie  and 
Jim  are  going  to  run  on  their  ' '  rims ' '  after- 
while. 

All  father  and  mother  can  do  is  to  open 
the  gate  and  say,  "Sic,  'em,  Tige!"  Tige 
has  got  to  get  all  he  ever  owns.  What  we  own 
is  not  what  we  have  in  our  pockets  or  in  our 
heads,  but  what  we  have  assimilated  into  our 
lives.  All  that  we  own  we  have  earned  our- 
selves. All  that  we  own  is  what  nobody  gave 
us  and  nobody  can  take  away  from  us. 

Father  and  mother  might  as  well  say,  "All 
our  lives  we  have  struggled  with  the  keyboard 
to  become  pianists.  All  our  lives  we  have 
had  scales,  and  practice,  and  technic!  Our 
children  shall  become  greater  pianists  than 
we  are,  but  they  shall  never  know  the  horrors 
of  the  five-finger  exercises." 
29 


Then  little  Lizzie  and  little  Jimmie  will 
never  become  pianists.  They  will  become 
pianolas !  , 

Most  advantages  are  generally  disadvan- 
tages. Giving  a  child  a  chance  generally 
means  getting  out  of  its  way.  Many  an 
orphan  can  really  be  grateful  that  he  was 
jolted  from  his  life-preserver  and  cruelly 
forced  to  sink  or  swim.  Thus  he  learned  to 
swim. 

All  colleges  can  -give  us  is  better  tools.  I 
know  some  "hard  knocks"  graduates  who  are 
liberally  educated,  who  cannot  write  their 
own  names.  They  are  illiterate  but  not  igno- 
rant. They  are  wise  and  great  and  have  gone 
high  in  the  jar  of  life.  They  served  with  the 
old,  crude,  home-made  tools,  the  "maul  and 
wedge ' '  and  the  ox-cart.  We  go  to  school  to- 
day to  get  better  and  more  efficient  tools. 
You  can  no  more  get  an  education  out  of  a 
book  than  you  can  get  to  New  York  by  read- 
ing a  railroad  guide. 


Most  Helping  Is  Hindering 

I  once  read  of  a  man  who  found  a  cocoon, 
the  little  chrysalis  thing  that  is  the  inter- 
mediate stage  between  the  caterpillar  and  the 
butterfly.  He  put  it  in  his  library,  up  betAveen 
two  books.  He  watched  the  little  life  develop- 
ing inside.  One  day  he  saw  that  the  little 
butterfly  was  struggling  inside  the  envelope 
30 


that  held  it.  It  was  trying  to  get  out,  but 
somehow  could  not  free  itself.  It  seemed  to 
need  help. 

He  got  a  knife  and  helped  it.  He  opened 
the  envelope  and  set  the  struggling  insect 
free.  But  out  came  a  monstrosity,  with 
under-developed  wings  and  over-developed 
body.  It  fluttered  a  few  feeble  flutters  and 
then  died.  He  had  killed  it  by  helping  it. 
He  learned  afterwards  that  that  struggle 
must  go  on  until  the  butterfly  has  freed  itself. 
It  must  wear  out  that  envelope.  That  struggle 
is  what  develops  its  wings  and  reduces  its 
body. 

That  law  of  life  holds  true  everywhere.  It 
is  our  own  effort  the  develops  us.  Strength 
must  come  from  struggle.  It  does  not  mean 
log  cabins  and  poverty  today,  but  it  assuredly 
does  mean  that  we  must  learn  to  stand  upon 
our  own  feet,  bear  our  own  burdens  and  solve 
our  own  problems. 

Anybody  who  does  for  us  regularly  what 
we  can  do  for  ourselves,  or  anybody  who  .gives 
us  regularly  what  we  can  earn  for  ourselves, 
is  robbing  us  of  our  birthright— our  right  to 
grow  greater  and  go  higher. 


#     *     * 


Make  a  Place  to  Put  It! 

And  so  the  message  of  life  to  young  and 
old  is,  Grow  or  go !    Rise  or  rattle ! 
We  want  a  great  arm.    We  cannot  buy  a 
31 


great  arm  and  nobody  can  give  us  a  great 
arm.  We  must  make  our  arm  a  great  servant. 
The  world  knows  that. 

But  the  world  does  not  know  so  well  that 
to  have  a  great  mind,  we  must  grow  that,  too. 
AVe  must  learn  to  think.  Many  a  man  who 
would  feel  degraded  to  be  a  physical  loafer  is 
a  mental  loafer.  Go  study  the  bills  of  the 
movies  and  the  theatres,  go  look  over  the  piles 
of  loud-covered  fodder  on  the  news-stands. 
There  are  ten  literary  drunkards  to  one  alco- 
holic drunkard.  There  are  a  hundred  amuse- 
ment drunkards  to  one  booze  slave.  And  all 
just  as  hard  to  cure. 

We  have  to  have  amusement  as  relaxation, 
but  all  relaxation  and  no  contraction,  phys- 
ically, mentally  or  morally,  spells  degenera- 
tion. If  we  live  to  outshine  our  neighbors 
we  will  become  all  outshine  and  no  in-shine. 
If  we  fill  our  lives  with  amusement,  we  will 
go  thru  our  lives  as  babies  with  new  rattle- 
boxes  and  "sugar-tits." 

I  can  hire  a  hall  in  any  city  or  town  in  the 
land  and  engage  the  greatest  speakers  in  the 
land  to  come  to  it  and  speak.  I  can  go  out 
on  the  street  and  say  to  scores  of  kind- 
hearted,  whole-souled  people,  " won't  you 
come  to  the  hall !  Here  is  a  free  ticket  to  hear 
one  of  the  great  lecturers  of  the  land. ' ' 

I  might  as  well  say,  "Smallpox,"  as  lec- 
ture.   They  will  say,  ' '  I  don 't  want  to  go.    I 
don't    like    lectures."      They   are   perfectly 
honest  about  it.    They  have  no  place  to  put  a 
32 


lecture.  They  are  confessing  they  do  not 
want  to  think.  They  want  to  follow  their 
noses  around  thru  life.  And  somebody  gen- 
erally leads  the  nose. 

The  menace  of  a  republic  is  the  man  who 
will  not  think  for  himself,  and  learn  to  think 
straight  as  he  learns  to  walk  straight.  The 
world  can  be  made  "safe  for  democracy," 
but  democracy  will  never  be  safe  for  the  world 
until  the  mental  rattler  is  saved  from  himself. 

That  is  the  trouble  with  poor  old  Russia. 
Her  people  have  never  learned  to  think. 
Thousands  of  lives  were  sacrificed  on  the  west 
front  in  the  world  war  because  Russia  rattled 
on  the  east  front. 

And  so  it  is  morally.  If  we  want  a  great 
character,  we  must  grow  it  by  great  moral 
service.  We  have  got  to  go  with  the  Master 
into  the  Wilderness  and  overcome  every 
temptation.  Then  the  angels  come  and  min- 
ister. Then  we  rise  to  the  heavenly  visions 
of  real  life !  Thus  we  become  great ! 


The  First  Step  at  Hand 

Everybody's  privilege  and  duty  is  to  get 
promoted,  to  go  up,  to  become  greater.  And 
the  joy  of  it  is  that  the  first  step  is  right  at 
hand.  We  do  not  have  to  go  off  to  Chicago  or 
New  York,  do  not  have  to  have  a  relative  in 
the  firm,  nor  go  chasing  around  for  testi- 
monials and  boosters. 
33 


yThe  great  stairway  that  leads  up  to  infinite 
heights  of  success  and  happiness  leads  right 
from  where  our  feet  are  now  planted.  We 
can  rise  with  our  next  step. 

We  must  take  the  first  step  now.  Most  of 
us  want  to  take  the  hundredth  step  or  the 
thousandth  step  now.  We  want  to  make  some 
spectacular  stride  of  a  thousand  steps  at 
once.  That  is  why  we  rattle  and  fall  so  hard. 
We  must  go  right  back  to  our  old  place- 
back  into  our  kitchen,  our  workshop  or  our 
office  and  take  the  first  step,  solve  the  problem 
nearest  at  hand.  We  must  make  our  old  work 
luminous  with  a  new  devotion.  We  must  de- 
velop greater  efficiency,  physically,  mentally, 
morally.  We  must  push  out  our  skyline  inch 
by  inch.  And  as  we  rise  to  a  higher  vision, 
we  will  see  the  next  step,  and  the  next.  As 
we  solve  and  dissolve  the  difficulties  and  turn 
the  burdens  into  blessings,  we  find  love,  the 
universal  solvent,  shining  out  of  our  lives. 
As  we  rise  to  greater  usefulness,  as  we  solve 
our  own  problems,  the  wrorld  is  drawn  to  us 
to  solve  its  problems.  We  find  our  kitchen  or 
workshop  or  office  becoming  a  new  throne  of 
power.  We  find  the  world  around  us  rising 
up  to  call  us  blessed. 

^       As- we  grow  greater  our  opportunities  grow 

greater.    We  find  they  were  waiting  all  these 

years  for  us  to  grow  great  enough  to  see  them. 

As  we  grow  greater  our  troubles  grow 

\/    smaller,  for  we  see  them  thru  greater  eyes 


and  look  down  upon  them  from  loftier  peaks 
of  vision. 

And  each  day  becomes  a  greater,  liappier 
day,  for  our  horizon  of  life  is  widening  as 
we  rise. 


Bless  you,  my  reader  friend!  I  bid  you 
farewell  and  godspeed,  hoping  some  day  to 
have  the  joy  of  shaking  your  hand,  and  with 
the  same  words  I  first  greeted  you:  "It's 
Up  to  You !  Are  You  Shaking  Up  or  Rattling 
Down!" 


35 


In  His  First  Lecture-Book 


The  University 


By  Ralph   Parlette 
Humorist—- 
Philosopher 


Hard  Knocks 


Parlette  Says: 

"The  greatest  school  is  The 
University  of  Hard  Knocks.  Its 
playground  is  the  Universe;  its 
President  is  the  Almighty.  Its 
books  are  bumps. 

"Here  we  learn  all  we  ever 
know,  and  write  it  in  the  only 
book  we  ever  own — The  Book  of  Our  Experience. 

"Every  bump  we  get  is  a  lesson.  If  we  learn 
the  lesson  with  one  bump,  we  don't  get  that  bump 
any  more;  we  get  promoted  to  the  next  bump." 

JUDGE   BEN   B.  LINDSEY,   COLORADO'S   FAMOUS 

JUVENILE    JUDGE,    ENDORSES 

"HARD    KNOCKS" 

"  'The  University  of  Hard  Knocks'  is  a  great,  big 
boost  for  everybody  that  will  read  it — and  every- 
body ought  to  read  it.  I  am  glad  that  so  many 
nuggets  from  that  delightful  and  wonderful  litera- 
ture of  Ralph  Parlette  have  been  put  in  book  form. 
People  ought  to  buy  them  by  the  gross  and  send 
them  to  their  friends." — Ben  B.  Llndsey. 

"WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN  COMMENDS 
"HARD   KNOCKS" 

"Having  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  Mr.  Ralph 
Parlette  lecture  and  knowing  the  interest  which 
he  arouses  and  the  pleasure  that  he  gives  to  his 
audience,  I  am  glad  to  commend  his  book,  'Hard 
Knocks,'  which  is  full  of  simple  and  practical 
philosophy." — William  Jennings  Bryan. 

BIGGEST  DOLLAR'S  WORTH  I'VE  HAD 

"I  paid  a  dollar  for  the  'Hard  Knocks'  and  read 
it  aloud  to  my  boy.  And,  honestly,  it  was  the 
biggest  dollar's  worth  I've  had  in  many  moons." — 
J.  C.  Chamberlayne,  Associate  Editor,  Schenectady, 
(N.  Y.)  Union  Star. 

Price    $1.00    Net 

PARL.ETTE-PADGET   COMPANY 

122   South   Michigan  Ave.,   Chicago 


RALPH  PARLETTE'S 

SECOND  LECTURE-BOOK 

BIG  BUSINESS 

OR 

A  BOOK  OF  REJOICING 

BIG  BUSINESS 

is  the   Business  of  Being    Happy 

is  the  Business  of  Turning'   Work    Into    Play 

is   the   Business  of  Being     What    We    are    Cre- 

ated   to    Be 

is  the  Business  of  Getting  Our  Happiness  NOW 
in  Our  Work  and  NOT  TOMORROW  for 
Our  Work 

"Biff  Business  is  a  real  joy  to  read.  It  is  big  and 
ought  to  be  read  today  and  tomorrow  and  forever- 
more  everywhere.  It  is  truly  "A  Book  of  Rejoic- 
ing." —  Dr.  J.  G.  Crabbe,  President  State  Teachers 
College,  Greeley,  Colo. 

"In  Big  Business  we  have  the  practical  philosophy 
that  it  is  everyone's  business  to  abolish  work  and 
turn  this  world  into  a  playground.  Who  will  not 
confess  that  many  mortals  take  their  work  too 
seriously,  and  that  to  them  it  is  a  joyless,  cheerless 
thing?  To  be  able  to  find  happiness,  and  to  find  it 
when  we  are  bending  to  our  duties,  is  to  possess 
the  secret  of  living  to  the  full.  And  happiness  is 
to  be  sought  within,  and  not  among  the  things  that 
lie  at  our  feet.  The  book  before  us  is  wholesome 
and  vivacious.  It  provokes  many  a  smile,  and 
beneath  each  one  is  a  bit  of  wisdom  it  would  do  us 
a  world  of  good  to  learn.  It  recalls  the  saying  of 
the  wise  man,  "A  merry  heart  doeth  good  like  a 
medicine."  —  The  Augsberg  Teacher. 

"Perhaps  because  being  happy  is  not  as  easy  just 
now  as  it  is  at  normal  times,  Ralph  Parlette  has 
written  about  it  as  if  it  were  an  achievement  and 
not  an  accident.  The  business  of  being  happy  is 
one  of  paramount  importance  as  this  author  points 
out  rn  Big  Biisiness.  More  than  just  being  happy, 
this  big  business  means  turning  our  work  Into 
play.  The  author  writes  in  a  genuinely  humorous 
and  popular  vein,  with  an  understanding  of  in- 
dividuals as  well  as  of  life  in  general.  But  there 
is  a  dead  earnestness  beneath  the  surface  which 
penetrates  the  reader's  consciousness  and  leaves 
him  much  impressed."  —  The  Christian  Advocate. 

Price  $1.OO  Net 
PARLETTE-PADGET  COMPANY 


122  South  Michigan  Avenue. 


CHICAGO 


